Maurice Harris didn’t exactly plan on becoming a florist, but his decision to express his creative voice through flowers was strategic. “I was always figuring out ways to be creative, whether through hair, fashion or makeup,” he says from his office in Los Angeles. “But flowers were a space that wasn’t heavily saturated with black people, black men, black gay men. Those other industries have their fair share of stars. I felt this was the industry where there was the opportunity to breathe new air.”

Under the brand name Bloom and Plume, Harris’s rococo creations are indeed light-years away from the baby’s breath and pastel roses of traditional flower arrangements. On Instagram, his captions are laden with the sort of slang and Internet memes that would make the cardi...